


Honest Hands

by cilceon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26324812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cilceon/pseuds/cilceon
Summary: A retelling of Deacon's final affinity talk with the sole survivor.Its sad, its sweet, its this man not knowing how to process his feelings.What an odd thing it was to be cherished by someone who does not know him, but here he was. Didn't she love him? Did he have any right to think that she loved him? She had said so yes, but was it in the same way she said it to Nick, or Preston, or hell, Dogmeat? He couldn't find any special meaning in it that differentiated him from the others, why did that make him feel disappointed?
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Honest Hands

**Author's Note:**

> READ ME hi there! i've rewritten this story to be much better & twice as long it can be read here [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638680) this version is still up for archival reasons.

READ NOTES FOR BETTER VERSION

Deacon read somewhere that ancient Egyptians had around fifty words for sand and that a tribe of people up north had a hundred for snow. He wished that he had a thousand for this feeling, but all that came to mind was the way Wanderer would move against him while she was asleep, there were no words that did it justice.

The way her hands would ghost across his skin when he was hurt, how she’d tilt her head to the side ever so slightly when he told her some strung out story that she knew was utter bullshit. How Wanderer would lift an eyebrow when another member of the Railroad would rag on him for his relationship with honesty - it was a look that said _really, you’re going to talk about him like that when I’m right here?_

He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She was his best friend; he knew that much. Deacon ran his fingers absentmindedly through Wanderer’s hair.

He found himself thinking about how this started. It was maybe in December when the cold had really set in. Wanderer wasn't used to it.

She wasn't used to having to sleep where the walls weren't solid, or the beds weren't soft, and the blankets weren't plentiful. It was nights like this that Deacon remembered that this wasn't everything she knew. She had known better and deserved better.

But that night had been cold, and it was Deacon’s turn to be on watch and he watched her shiver on that little bedroll they had found, and his heart ached.

That night he had suggested, in a teasing tone of self-preservation, that he lay with her to keep her warm. To his surprise, Wanderer had said yes; and he had spent that night with her between his arms, keeping her safe from the cold.

Out of everything she now had to deal with, the cold was the thing she had the most trouble. Whether it was left over from her pre-war days, or because she was frozen for 200 years - he couldn't quite tell, but Deacon knew it made her unhappy, and he didn't like that.

This was another one of those nights, not as cold as the first, but not quite warm either. It was raining outside the tin shack they’d found themselves in. The sky was angry, and the wind blew with an irate ferocity, but the woman between his arms was sleeping soundly, so he supposed everything was okay.

He wasn't quite sure how to describe it - the relationship he had with Wanderer. Yes, she was his best friend, but, somehow, she was so much more. It was terrifying.

Deacon continued lightly twisting her curls around his fingers while she slept. The wind had blown it almost completely out of the bun she kept it in, and once they’d found a safe place to hunker down in before the storm had started, she had spent a good half an hour picking the bobby pins out.

But it was times like this that he thought, maybe, just maybe fate picked favourites. That favouritism shifted from person to person, yes, but right now it was on him, and, selfishly, Deacon didn't want to let it go.

A deacon proclaims gospel, but they cannot hear confessions. How he wished to be a vase that she could pour all of her tears into.

It had only happened two or three times where she had let him see her cry. Oh god, when Wanderer cried it was the most heart wrenching thing. They were tears full of insurmountable sorrow, intangible grief. He would do anything to remove that pain from her. No one would understand the violence it took for her to become gentle.

His Wanderer was able to pinpoint any problem, any weakness that she saw in her companions when they travelled with her. Not for the sake of whatever fight with raiders they were in, but to protect her friend completely. Deacon found that, never on her watch, would any of her friends be left alone. He admired that in her, even if it meant that she could get hurt. She loved them all so much.

What an odd thing it was to be cherished by someone who does not know him, but here he was. Didn't she love him? Did he have any right to think that she loved him? She had said so yes, but was it in the same way she said it to Nick, or Preston, or hell, Dogmeat? He couldn't find any special meaning in it that differentiated him from the others, why did that make him feel disappointed?

If Deacon let Wanderer see who he was she would see that he was a monster- the lowest beast she has ever known, and she would leave his side and rightly so. But the tenderness in her eyes when she looked at him? It surpassed all the great comforts that anyone had ever had the pleasure of holding since man first breathed. Her eyes made him rethink the hatred that he deserved.

What right did Deacon have to claim those eyes for his own? He was just the shadow watching her, guiding her down a path with suggestions and humour. Putting her back upright should she slip. He was nothing important to her.

Nonetheless here she was, crawled up in a ball, head pressed against his chest. His arms wrapped around her like a blanket. Deacon could live in this moment forever, with the rain rasping on the roof above them, and the soft sound of her breathing against his t-shirt.

Nothing was set in stone, it was more like a dirt road. If one rolls a wagon in the same path too much, it soon becomes the only path that can be taken without struggling. And he had been on the path of lying for so long that now, that in moments like this where he wanted to say _I love you fully and completely,_ Deacon would freeze. It was terrifying - so terrifying.

Deacon moved his hand from her hair down to her shoulder and began tracing slow, lazy circles with his thumb. From the moment a person is born they yearn for touch. People want to be held, not just to eat, but for safety and warmth. For solace, for affection - for love.

A newborn shows preference in who they want to be held by. Especially when they're tired, or sick, or scared, and that fact didn’t change as they aged. People are born ready to be loved, their first need is to be cared for, to be fed and changed, and to be held. To learn that they are loved. Wanderer made him feel like he no longer had to fulfil a condition. That maybe just maybe he could be worthy of loving someone again.

This woman made him feel like he deserved it. That he had deserved to be loved since the moment he was born, and that it never left him. Deacon would always push that thought to the side, but it grew in his heart again with a fiery persistence.

Deacon couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt because of him and he knew that one day when he wasn't expecting it, that that very thing would happen. He could only hope that he was by her side, and it was after they'd taken the Institute down.

Her hand tightened slightly against his chest, “Dee, whatcha thinkin’ about?” Wanderer’s voice was groggy with sleep. She tilted her head to look up at him, sunglasses protecting her from his feelings.

“The exchange rate from caps to dollars,” He kept his voice low in town to match her own, “I’m wondering how much Glory’s minigun can get me if I’m ever in a pinch.”

She smiled against him with a closed mouth laugh, “She’ll break your arm before you even get the chance.”

“Hey Wands?” What was he doing?

“Mhm?”

“I got something important to say.” _Deacon what are you doing?_

Wanderer sat up as the tone of their conversation shifted, legs folding under her. She rubbed sleep out of her eyes then blinked at him, “Is everything okay?”

Deacon started to mirror her but opted for sitting crisscross. He smiled sadly at her concern, “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just- well, I really appreciate you putting up with my bullshit.” It was said with a chuckle. He was really going to do this, “Truth is it's been a long time since I've had a… friend.”

Wanderer tilted her head to the side in the way she did when she was thinking. This was the first time he had been so open with her, of course Wanderer would be skeptical about it. He would expect nothing less.

“Well sure Dee, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side but you.” _Please don’t say that._

He sighed; the breath held a shaking to it that he couldn’t hide. “I'm a liar. Everyone knows it. I- I make no secret of it. Because the truth is: I'm a fraud. To my core.”

She was fully awake now, the seriousness of the conversation reaching her but she didn’t speak just yet.

Deacon couldn’t look at her, settling for the stitching of the blanket they were on instead. The shield his glasses gave him didn’t exist with Wanderer anymore. “When I was young, a hell of a long time ago, I was… well, scum.” He closed his eyes with a swallow. “I was a bigot. A very violent bigot.”

 _You trying to sell me another of your lies? Really? When I’m sleepy_? That’s what she was going to say, he knew it. It felt like he was waiting to get sucker punched.

“Were you really that bad?” Wanderer’s voice was soft within the question. She sounded like she was talking to a wounded animal. In a way, she was.

“Worse than that.” _So much worse._ “I ran with a gang in University Point. We called ourselves the UP Deathclaws. For kicks we'd… terrorize anyone that we thought was a synth.” _She’s trying to figure out what game you’re playing._ “We kept egging each other on. Started with some property damage graduated to some beat downs. Then, inevitably…” _Say it Deacon, tell her._ “… a lynching. The Claw's leader was convinced we'd finally found and killed a synth. Looking back, I'm not so sure-”

“You… killed someone?” Her brow knitted and a fist tightened in the blanket.

If confessions were good for the soul, why did this hurt so much?

Deacon nodded solemnly, “That one was enough for me. It was his eyes… Those eyes haunt me. Bulging.” He turned his head from her, the voice in his head telling him to shut up. Deacon refused to listen to it. “So, I turned my back on my ‘brothers’ - broke all contact.”

“Leaving them took a lot of courage.” Wanderer brought her hand up towards him but must have thought better of it because she lowered it back into her lap.

“There was nothing brave about it, Wanderer. But leaving wasn't free- they took it out on my sad hide… Time passed, I became a farmer, if you can believe that.” He gestured to himself halfheartedly, “Then, one day I found someone. She saw something in me I didn't know was there.” _Say her name. She deserves for her name to be said._ “By the time I met… Barbara, they'd moved on.”

“What was she like?” Wanderer’s fingers moved into the blanket.

“Barbara, well, she was… She just _was_. She had a smile like on those old magazine covers. Her eyes…” _They were like yours._ No. He had no right to say that. “Being with her made me feel like the whole world had a chance. That one day we could climb out of this wreckage. She could do that to people.” He smiled with the memory of her, “We were trying for kids, eking out a living. Then one day… It turns out my Barbara- she was a synth. She didn't know that. I certainly didn't. I don't know how the Deathclaws found out. But… there was blood.”

“Deacon,” Wanderer lifted her hand again this time resting it on his knee. Involuntary he flinched; she should be hitting him, not showing him compassion. “They killed her?” Her voice cracked.

“Yes.” How could one word hold so much pain? He staired at her hand on him, “I don't remember much clearly after that. I know…I know that I killed most of the Claws. I must've made a big impression.” Deacon smiled bitterly. “The Railroad contacted me soon after and well, here we are.”

Her grip on him tightened slightly but he spoke before she could. “I know you’re thinking that I’m feeding you a story that you can find similarities in but- Charlie, I swear I wouldn’t hurt you like that.”

Deacon tried to keep the disconnect between her real name and Wanderer in two different categories as often as he could. He wasn’t sure when it became a claim to endearment. Project Wanderer had grown to be the most treasured person in his pathetic life.

He didn’t take his eyes off her hand, “I don't even know why I lie any more. But I can't tell the truth. Everyone- Tom, Dez, you, even that asshole Carrington- deserve to be in the Railroad. I don't. I'm everything wrong with this whole fucking Commonwealth.”

Her fingers tightened on him. “Deacon that’s not-”

 _Please, don’t show me kindness._ “You're the only friend I got but I… I don't deserve you being okay with this. Hell, I'm not even asking for it. But I figured you should know; sorry it was out of the blue like this but I-”

Wanderer brought her hand to his face, silencing him. “Deacon.” He closed his eyes, a tear falling with the action. It rested on her thumb and she brushed it away with a ghost of movement. “Deacon.” She sounded so sad.

He went still under the sudden contact. Not rigid, but quiet. He didn’t want to miss a moment of her touch. Deacon didn’t want to be distracted by his own breathing. God, he was pitiful.

“Thank you for sharing this with me.” Why was she was being so gentle with him? “I know it had to be difficult for you.” Wanderer moved her thumb across Deacon’s skin again, his stubble catching on the softness of her thumb. He was slacking on his everyday shaving ritual.

She continued, “How we respond to what happens to us- especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted, and we have no control over? That's what defines us as people. If you asked me- my dear friend, to define you, I would say that you are a brave, strong, good man who is trying to make up for the misdeeds of his past. I believe you are succeeding in that.”

“Wanderer, I-”

Her other hand reached his face now, palms resting over both the pulses of his neck, “Hush. It's my turn to talk. You are not the person you were yesterday or the days- years before. And you are not the person you will be tomorrow. Please, you need to understand that. And yes, part of me is saying; ‘Is Deacon messing with my head? Again?’” Her touch kept him from looking away. “But a bigger piece of me is yelling for the other to shut up.”

“Wands,” He looked at her through the tint of his glasses, “I’m in your corner, I always have been.” His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone he used to be.

She nodded in agreement with a sad smile on her face, hands leaving his face and taking their warm with them. “I know, Dee. I know. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“I'm not the hugging type. So, yeah. Good talk.” His voice morphed into a whisper.

The smile lost some of the sadness, replaced with understanding. She was so good to him. “Lay down with me? The ran doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be stopping anytime soon.” Wanderer didn’t wait for an answer as she laid back down, facing away from him.

He smiled in turn, then took his glasses off with a soft _click click_ before setting them on the ground. “I’m suppose to be on watch, you know?” He settled in behind her, knowing she wasn’t going to turn around. What a strange strand of trust they had.

“Then don’t fall asleep.” Her voice was muffled in the crook of her arm but he could tell she was smiling as he drooped his arm over her and settled into place behind her, where he belonged.


End file.
